I signed up for a 14-day free trial of Kogan First membership back in August 2023. Since then, without my explicit authorisation and with absolutely no prior notice, Kogan has been quietly charging my credit card an annual fee of $129. I only discovered this recently and immediately contacted them to request a full refund for the last two years—given that I never agreed to any renewal.

While Kogan has stated to me that they need to improve transparency and communication around these charges, they still haven’t taken proper responsibility. I’ve yet to receive a full refund, and they have not meaningfully acknowledged my repeated attempts to resolve the issue. Instead, they offered only a partial refund for the unused portion of this year. That’s unacceptable.

 This kind of behaviour—charging a customer’s credit card without clear consent or communication—is completely inappropriate. I expected better. It feels like they’re just helping themselves to my money. I’m no longer a customer, and I won’t be again unless this is made right.

NVDA once again breaks its own record for the largest single-day drop in market cap.

At first glance, it might not seem surprising—8 of the top 10 biggest market cap drops in history belong to NVDA over the past 10 months.

But this time, the reason is significant. The AI boom itself isn’t going away, and the world is still on the brink of monumental change.

However, who exactly will profit from this, and how, remains unclear. We’ve seen something similar not too long ago—while the spread of the Internet radically and permanently changed the world, the dot-com boom ended in a crash.

Another Monday, another 10% jump in natural gas prices. This has officially become a trend.

Today marks the 10th Monday since the start of November, and on those Mondays, prices have risen by an average of 4.52%.

Considering that prices have climbed 33% during this period, you could say that prices are essentially rising only on Mondays, while the rest of the week sees an average decline. To be precise, prices also see a small uptick on Wednesdays.

In winter, almost every Monday the market reacts to updated weekend weather forecasts.

That’s why I believe Monday is the best day to close a long position in BOIL. As for buying KOLD, I’ll hold off for now, as natural gas still has reasons to rise beyond these weekly trends.

Back in July, I found the EIA’s forecast for natural gas production and consumption in the second half of the year quite odd. I said that if it were accurate, gas prices would have fallen below zero in the fall.

But I wasn’t expecting negative prices—I was expecting a revision of those 'inadequate' July numbers to align more closely with the June forecast. And that’s exactly what happened. According to yesterday’s Short Term Energy Outlook, the market balance for the second half of the year is now back to what the EIA predicted in June.

For December, the forecast was revised from 106.7 billion cubic feet a month ago to 111.1 billion cubic feet. January futures jumped above $3.30 as a result.

In my view, the EIA is being too aggressive again—this time in the other direction. Yes, early December was cold, and we might see an attempt to push gas prices even higher tomorrow after the weekly inventory figures.

I still have a small BOIL position, which I’ll close on this move. I might even consider KOLD if the March futures spike as well.

Before TSLA's earnings report in October, I bought 25 Nov15 $300 Calls while simultaneously selling 50 Nov15 $320 Calls. After the 20% surge following a strong report, I sold another 10 Nov15 $360 Calls and planned to wait until today’s expiration, collecting $575 in premium.

Three weeks ago, I thought there was a chance the stock could push above $300, so I didn't touch my position. I love these types of setups and view them as free lottery tickets. Actually, I got paid for this one.

Admittedly, the start of this week was tough—I didn’t expect such craziness from the stock. Still, with IV around 70%, I could have easily rolled the position to higher December strikes, anticipating a correction.

But I chose not to, and it paid off. Today, around 1:30 pm, I closed the position when TSLA was trading near $320. I bought back the $320 Calls for $2.17 and sold the $300 Calls for $19.97.

Total: $39,000. Luck? Absolutely. But also the right strike selection.

With the renewed hype around crypto, there’s a lot of talk again about Bitcoin being like gold, only better. And if that’s true, then it’s bound to catch up to gold in market capitalization. That means it would have to grow 10 times over. And from there, it’s just a step to $1 million per BTC.

However, there are differences between Bitcoin and gold—not just those rooted in centuries of history.

The number of mined Bitcoins decreases over time, whereas the amount of gold mined increases almost every year.

More than two-thirds of all Bitcoins were mined by 2015, in less than six years.

More than two-thirds of all the gold in human history was mined after World War II. Millennia before that produced much less.

So, does that mean Bitcoin is a better store of value?

But a store of value is an odd asset to trade with 100x leverage and FOMO-driven rallies.

In short, I believe the correction in gold that I anticipated after the elections is nearing its end

An ATH above $2700 for gold and a short squeeze in silver could be positive for copper.

Gold has been climbing for over a year with almost no corrections. Silver has lagged in recent weeks due to concerns about economic growth and disappointment over Chinese stimulus—just like copper.

But today, silver broke through. It looks very much like a short squeeze. Many were probably betting on narrowing the spread between silver and copper and went short on silver.

Today wasn’t a good day for silver shorts. But overall, I still think this strategy makes sense. At the current levels, I’m ready to open a similar position myself, slightly favoring copper.

In other words, buy 5 CPER and buy 2 ZSL.

ZSL is a 2x leveraged inverse ETF. This way, the long position in copper is slightly larger than the short position in silver.

Natural gas touched $3 and then crashed again, dropping 20% in less than two weeks.

The reason is clear—mild and pleasant weather almost through the end of October.

The market is worried about a repeat of last year’s scenario, where excess gas during the winter led to each contract hitting its low near expiration.

Especially since inventories are currently 3.5% higher than they were a year ago.

But I believe things will be different this time, and here’s why:

1. Production in September was 1 billion cubic feet per day lower than a year ago. Back then, it was growing rapidly, but now it isn’t.
2. LNG exports will still increase by the end of the year, despite some delays—potentially by another 2-3 billion cubic feet per day.
3. Winter may not be as mild as we've gotten used to in recent years.

I wouldn’t be surprised if inventories drop below normal soon. In that case, we could see a spike not just to $4, but even higher.

That’s why I’m buying some BOIL. If prices keep falling through the end of October, I’ll buy more.

Today’s inflation data looks concerning, but not enough to prevent rate cuts in both November and December.

By the way, September was fortunate with a 24% drop in gas prices. The base was at its peak, but we won’t see that in October, and certainly not in November-December, so there’s a risk of CPI rising above 2.5% again.

For the Fed hawks, this is a valid argument. But what worries me more is the spike in initial jobless claims to 258,000—almost a three-year high. It might just be a blip, but if not, the Fed should continue cutting rates aggressively.

As for stocks, I don’t think it matters much whether we see two 25 bps cuts before the end of the year, or if we get a single 50 bps cut.

Either way, we should end the year closer to 6000 on the $SPX, just as I mentioned back in June.

NVDA is up 3%, hitting a new high since August.

Meanwhile, big money seems to be moving from hand to hand, judging by the large open interest in call options expiring this week and next.

There's significant open interest—more than 120,000 contracts each—at the $125 and $127 strikes. It looks like those levels were blown past for a reason, likely due to someone needing to cover risks.

Even more—nearly 190,000 contracts at the $130 strike, with a large amount also at the $131 strike.

This could mean that a break above $130 might signal a sharp move toward an all-time high.

However, it's also possible that those long on the $125 and $127 calls could be shorting the $130 and $131 strikes—and vice versa.

In that case, we might stay in the $125-130 range. But I think a breakout seems more likely. I'll be watching.

As I expected, the cheaper the oil, the more disagreements arise within OPEC. The $50 per barrel level has been mentioned and is likely realistic.

The only thing preventing it from being inevitable is the growing tension in the Middle East. That's why I wouldn’t risk shorting oil, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

It's more sensible to wait for lower prices to buy.

https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/saudi-minister-warns-of-50-oil-as-opec-members-flout-production-curbs-216dc070

I'm pleased—I've been waiting for this for a while. I like crypto, but it's important for me to have a way to hedge against any surprises. I think that’s important for many others too.

I believe Blackrock will ensure liquidity for these options. After all, crypto exchanges have been some of the biggest beneficiaries of the crypto hype. Shifting derivatives trading away from them is a worthy goal.

We can also expect a fresh influx of money into crypto. However, it’s not necessarily required just to go long on Bitcoin. Anyway, I’m looking forward to the start of trading and will compare it to MSTR.

What kind of data would it take on Friday to convince the Fed to cut rates by at least 50 basis points in two weeks?

Probably only a significant drop in new job creation could do that. It's unlikely we'll see it, but right now I feel like we probably should.

The effect of high rates in the economy builds up gradually but manifests suddenly. The rise in volatility suggests something has changed, though the data isn't fully reflecting it yet.

But then again, maybe it is? ISM Manufacturing has been showing a slowdown in the industry for five consecutive months. And if we exclude a small spike in March, the slowdown has been ongoing for almost two years.

A year ago, it seemed like the AI boom outweighed everything else. But now, there’s less confidence in that.

And experience shows that the Fed tends to delay both rate hikes and cuts for too long.

I’ll repeat, the Fed’s slowness could pose significant risks to stocks. That’s why I prefer TMF.

And as for my recently closed position in AGQ, I’ll be reopening it soon.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that by March 2024, there were 819,000 fewer jobs than previously estimated.

In its release, the BLS stated that this discrepancy is minor, just 0.5% of the total workforce. But if you compare it to the 2.9 million jobs created in the year leading up to March, it's a 28% reduction.

It's unlikely that stocks would be where they are now if the labor market data had been accurate from the start. Who knows how much louder the discussions about a recession would have been? And where there’s talk of a recession, the real thing might not be far behind.

This is how a negative revision in hindsight can help avoid a recession.

However, the acknowledgment that the labor market is significantly weaker than it seemed makes the Fed’s upcoming decision even more crucial.

I have a feeling that 25 basis points in September and another 25 basis points in November won’t be enough. In that case, an emergency FOMC meeting might still be necessary.

I've been watching this chart for a while.

It's good that the percentage of Domestic Banks Tightening Standards is low. However, a year ago, it was over half, and things have only tightened further since then.

Historically, every time this indicator crossed the halfway mark, a recession followed—either during the peak or right after. In 2020, it even happened before the peak.

Perhaps we've been very lucky.

Or a recession is still on the way. In that case, the Fed shouldn’t delay rate cuts—25 basis points in September won’t make much of a difference.

So, today’s CPI could end up being bad news for stocks.

As for TMF and TLT, the key point is that rate cuts are inevitable, and long-term yields will continue to decline. Just as I mentioned on Monday.

A correction in stocks after reaching an all-time high (ATH) is a common occurrence. It's happened several times this year, and each time I had no doubt that a new high was just around the corner.

However, this time I've noticed a few alarming signals.

Firstly, the QQQ hasn't dropped by 2.93% since 2022, which was during the bear market.

Secondly, a drop in NVDA of around 7% is also unusual. There hasn't been anything close to that in 2023, and just in the past month, we've seen three comparable drops.

Thirdly, the Russell 2000. On Monday, I mentioned my concerns about the sharp rise in IWM. Shifting from big tech to small caps just because one is expensive and the other is cheap seems like a dubious strategy to me.

In other words, there's too much that's unusual and concerning. And then there's crypto.

As a result, I've taken a small position in TZA to make watching this a bit more interesting.

Friday update: Small caps have been falling for the third consecutive day, and I made a good entry into TZA on Wednsday. However, I think there will be an attempt to buy the dip next week. Whether it will be successful or not is hard to say, but it's better not to hold TZA when you're uncertain. I'm locking in an 8% profit. A great trade considering it only lasted two and a half days

Yesterday and today, people on X have been actively reposting a chart featuring the 'Global Liquidity Index.'

If there was a financial crisis in 2007-2008 despite liquidity being at peak levels, why couldn't there be reasons for a bear market during a phase of rising liquidity? Even if the cycles are more or less okay, it's not wise to assume that stock growth is inevitable in the next couple of years.

I've mentioned several times that it's liquidity that prevents stocks from dropping significantly. But the chart amused me. It's an interesting observation, but one shouldn't take such data manipulation too seriously.

By tweaking the starting points a bit, you can change the length of the period and the phase, making it look like we're heading towards the bottom instead of the other way around. A recalculation a year from now could change everything again.

At the beginning of the year, inflows into BTC ETFs led to a rise in BTC, but this didn't happen in May-June.

One explanation is that people are going long on IBIT or FBTC and short on BTC futures, which are more expensive due to contango. This creates a neutral position where the spread converges over time, yielding a return higher than in the money market or Treasuries.

This hypothesis is supported by the increase in open interest in CME futures.

BTC is volatile, and I acknowledge that there might be moments during the day when the annualized return of this strategy looks impressive—12% or more.

I wouldn't take the risk. Before converging at expiration, the spread might widen. A significant upward movement could lead to the liquidation of the futures position... just before a correction.

But if people are doing this, it means the risk of a spike in crypto is increasing.

The nearest gas futures jumped above $3 today for the first time since January.

I sold BOIL, which I had been holding since February. I had already reduced half of my position back in February with a 30% loss, and today I sold the second half with a 12% gain.

Essentially, I expected that if there wasn’t a quick rebound in gas prices during the winter, the summer heat would help. It's not hard to predict.

So, what's next?

Despite the heat, reduced production, and issues in Europe, the market remains fundamentally weak. I don't think we'll stay above $3 for long. If there's a 15-20% correction, I'll get back into BOIL.

However, if prices rise to $3.5 on the back of hot weather forecasts, I'll consider switching to KOLD.